Tuesday, 21 July 2015

The Ultimate Deterrent?

Nikola Tesla is one of my heroes; I like him especially for
his naïve enthusiasm and the wild impracticality of his more spectacular
inventions. One of the more practical — still of course in daily use, though as
usual Nikola got and gets little credit — was the radio-controlled vehicle; in
the first instance, a boat:

At the time of his invention, America was at war with Spain,
and I’m sorry to say — it has come as a disappointment to me; I didn’t know
Tesla could be so warlike — he tried to convince the American government that
such a device, fitted with torpedoes, would render America’s coastline
impregnable. He also rushed to patent his invention in European countries, and
to convince them too of its value in time of war. In this he was helped by his
friend Mark Twain:

I am not sure if it’s to Tesla’s credit or debit that he
believed his invention would be such a powerful deterrent that it would put an
end to all wars.